Pyrolysis

Three of the biggest challenges of the twenty-first century are the need to nearly double food production by 2050, to adapt and build resilience to a more and more challenging climatic environment, and to simultaneously achieve a substantial reduction in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations.

The surge of interest in climate-smart agriculture, which focuses on solutions to the three challenges, has sparked curiosity in using the pyrolysis technology and in particular biochar as a tool to fight climate change while also improving soil fertility. Biochar systems are particularly relevant in the context of developing countries and could be leveraged to address global challenges associated with food production and climate change.

The Vietnamese coffee sector is currently facing a number of environmental and economic challenges and is calling for concrete changes on the technological side of coffee processing, in particular the drying of coffee cherries, as the traditional sun drying method is not reliable anymore. In the meantime, farmers downstream the value chain seriously face soil degradation problems.

The coffee production is relying heavily on chemical fertilizers and farmers have problems to adapt to effects of climate change (drought, water clogging). The preservation of soil with good quality has become a serious problem. The Pyrolysis technology tackles the above-mentioned needs, thus becoming a promising alternative to reduce costs and to bring new business opportunities to farmers/processors. The pyrolysis technology valorises coffee husks to provide two main products: heat, which can be used for efficient and fast coffee drying, and biochar, a valuable soil enhancer